Archie Bunker's Army

"It wasn't very pretty. Too many beers around here, too many breweries." Pedro on Pitching and hecklers in Milwaukee Several days last week was spent officially denying that Ramon Castro is Pedro's personal catcher. Last night's game saw Mike Piazza and his 6 for 9, 3 homer hot streak catching Pedro yet again, finally perhaps out of excuses, or perhaps his bat just too hot to be left out. Pedro's reaction? "I felt draggy," Martinez said after pitching to Piazza. "Bad day, when you don't feel like you'd like to [pitch]. Bad, when your body didn't physically click for you. Today, I didn't click. I didn't feel good the whole game. But still, I used my experience to keep the team in the game, keep them off-balance, make pitches. Gave up a couple of bombs. Ended up with a win, team won. That's what really matters." Piazza's reaction? O for 5 at the plate, sudden end of hot hitting, Hmmm. What a coincidence. Won...

Sorry, no commentary today, just take it straight off the old MLB and say well done you Mets: Mets Kick Ass Again : Mike Piazza hit home runs in consecutive plate appearances to lead the Mets' offense in a 7-4 victory Friday night over the Brewers -- who had won seven straight -- at Miller Park. Mike Piazza can't throw his mother out at second but at least he's starting to hit! AND Victor Zambrano didn't embarass himself. It was a good day in the Mets World.

Hail! Hail! the gang's all here Never mind the weather Here we are together. Hail! Hail! the gang's all here Let the fun begin right NOW! In some ways, it was like the sweet respite of a calm stomach between violent bouts of marathon dry-heaving. Two days after Tom Glavine nearly reduced his Hall of Fame credentials to rubble in a single, scandalous outing against these very same Phillies, Kris Benson and Aaron Heilman, two young Met pitchers with a suddenly positive upside, combined to lead the Mets out of the mental hospital of inconsistent starting pitching by tossing 8 innings of 6 hit, 2 run ball, surrendering only 3 walks and striking out 11. In many ways it was indeed a day of Madame George and roses for the Mets as Benson welcomed himself to the 2005 season with a promising outing, Aaron Heilman continued his slow crawl to respectability, Mike Cameron made his 2005 debut with a pair of doubles and two runs scored and Mike Piazza finally broke out of his miserable s...

It could have been billed as the Battle for the Bottom of the NL East. The Phillies are in last place having lost 10 of their last 15 and the Mets were only one game ahead of them going in to last night's game with the unpredictable Jae Seo taking the mound for the Mets. But Seo pitched a bit like Cy against the Phillies last night, holding Philadelphia hitless until David Bell's single to left with two outs in the fifth. He matched a career high with eight strikeouts, didn't allow a run in seven innings and threw 109 pitches, 71 which were strikes. He has now lowered his earned run average to 2.00 in three starts this season. His reward? Getting optioned to Triple-A Norfolk after the game to make room for right-hander Kris Benson, who will come off the disabled list Thursday and make his first start of the season. I guess Victor Zambrano didn't answer the page for his train to Norfolk and they couldn't convince Tom Glavine to retire to make room on the roste...

Wow. I thought Tom Glavine always saved his most egregious performances for his old teammates, the Atlanta Braves. Turns out I was wrong. He's got a whole other form of mephitis to coax out for perhaps the entire 2005 season and the end of his career. Of course, if you don't consider Tom Glavine stinking up Shea to be news how about Jose Reyes drawing his first walk in 119 plate apearances! Glavine started the festivities of a vile 10-3 thrashing by surrendering a three run homer to Met nemesis Pat Burrell (27 homers against the Mets) in the first inning and things didn't get any better from there. By the fourth inning, when Glavine was finally yanked out of a game he didn't appear to belong in, he'd been charged with eight runs which further extended his distended ERA to a breathtaking 7.04, to go hand-in-hand with a 1-4 record. He is becoming The Anti-Pedro which is not something you want from your number two starter. At least he's still doing better th...

Not even a rain delay at the start that lasted over two hours could stop Pedro Martinez from winning his third game as a Met last night in a pitching duel redux from the 2004 American League Championship with John Lieber. That sounds odd but yes, Jon Lieber, of the Yankees, pitched seven innings and allowed one run and beat Boston's Pedro Martinez, who went six innings and allowed three runs. Just seven months ago. Last night it was John Lieber the Phillie against Pedro the Met but although Lieber lasted six innings and gave up one run over just 79 pitches, Pedro got the win after giving up one run in seven innings and striking out six. For the Mets it was the two most expensive new faces who saved the day; Pedro became the 19th pitcher in big-league history to record 2,700 strikeouts and eventually won the pitcher's duel whilst Carlos Beltran blasted a three run homer to turn a tight 1-1 game into a 4-1 lead in the bottom of that same seventh, a lethal combination for the P...

What potent blood hath modest May. - Ralph W. Emerson Is this the full circle? With the Mets leading last night by three runs in the bottom of the 9th inning in RFK Stadium, Bradon Looper came in from the bullpen to try and earn a save and another shot at redemption. In the first game of April he was horrific, blowing not only a two run lead, but the victory itself in his infamous bottom-of-the-9th inning meltdown that saw the Mets lose their April opener to the Reds. And here we were again, this time in the May opener, away from home and Looper on the mound like a plague of locusts waiting to destroy the victory crop the Mets had planted with their three run top of the ninth rally. But not even after Looper allowed Cristian Guzman's two-out triple and followed that up by walking pinch hitter Termel Sledge, a .229 hitter this season to put the tying run at the plate, did we lose faith that no, no-way José would Looper blow another. Fortunately for himself and the rest of us, he ...

"April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain." - TS Eliot from The Wasteland Hard to choose which was more pathetic last night, the chaotic, muddled performance of the RFK grounds crew and the game's umpires who kept the game going even though small lakes were forming in the infield OR yet another in the series of Victor Zambrano's painful pitching performances. Either way, the Mets lost their 4th straight game 5-3 and closed out the month of April with a 11-13 record to bookend nicely with their five game losing streak that started the month off. Not exactly the New Mets and not as pathetic as the old ones. So far, they're just The Mediocre Mets . However, they will file a protest about Saturday night's rain-shortened contest, one precipitated by what they consider the failure of the home team to provide suitable playing conditions when they might have been achiev...

You could have had a bad feeling about this one at old RFK Stadium in Washington DC as soon as the first inning. In the first inning the Mets had bases loaded with only one out for Cliff Floyd who is hitting .359 and is red-hot on a 14 game hitting streak. With Livan Hernandez struggling early as he did in his last outing, Floyd hit a deep fly on a slow curve that just missed being a grandslam and instead turned into a sacrifice fly which scored Matsui to make it 1-0 but spared Hernandez a blowout first inning. Rather than capitalising on their base runners, the Mets ended the inning with a disappointing 1-0 lead. It was a trend the Mets would follow all night as they hit just one single in 11 at-bats with runners in scoring position. In fact, the Mets put at least one runner in scoring position in six innings with similarly miserable and unproductive results and that one run lead held only until the 4th inning when Jose Guillen hit a two out line drive homer to left field to tie t...

Tom Glavine spent 16 seasons pitching for the Atlanta Braves and sometimes it seems as though he still is, even though he joined the Mets a little over two seasons ago. As is his consuetude, Glavine faced the Braves last night and was knocked about even worse than he is by other opponents, this time getting knocked out after just 4 2/3 innings Wednesday at Shea Stadium, allowing seven runs and 12 hits -- including back-to-back home runs by Eddie Perez and Wilson Betemit -- en route to an 8-4 Mets defeat. On the other hand, former Met pitcher Mike Hampton had no such trouble against his former teammates, improving his record to 3-0 with a 1.67 ERA for the season and throwing seven admirable innings against them. Mr Glavine, the prize free agent signing of the Mets winter of 2002 is now 1-7 against his former team with an earned run average of 9.36 and the question begs to be asked: Whose side are you on anyway? Others might say that yesterday's performance was vintage 2005 Glavine...

There were the inevitable comparisons to their first matchup of the season when the Mets had started their season by losing five in a row and Smoltz was burning through the Mets order, striking out 15 and Pedro was matching him out for out with a two hitter before the Mets exploded in that fateful 8th inning. It wasn't quite as exciting, the stakes weren't quite as high and the venue had moved from Turner Field to Shea but after allowing three quick runs in the top of the first, for the fourth time in his five starts and the 15th time in the Mets' 21 games, the opposing team scored in the first inning and the Braves went on to win this 4-3. The drama came eventually but not until a 9th inning rally when down 4-1. Eric Valent, the man who has struck out in 50% of his at-bats this season, led off the ninth inning rally with a two-out double off the Braves not so imposing closer, Dan Kolb. Mets pinch-hitters were three for three last night and Valent raised his batting averag...

You might not be able to say much about how he pitches on the road, but for two consecutive games at Shea, Heilman has seemed right at home. In 16 innings worth of unpredictable fun at Shea, Heilman (2-2) has allowed a mere run, three hits and four walks, striking out 12, to laud a 0.56 ERA. Pedro Country. But on the road, this guy stinks so far, going 0-2 with a 12.00 ERA in two starts. Heilman went through a stretch last night where he retired 15 straight batters and it stayed 1-0 until the sixth when Mike Piazza, who broke out of a slump with three hits, doubled home Kaz Matsui with the tying run. Then Cliff Floyd hit his fifth home run of the season, stretching his hitting streak to 12 games as the Mets hung on to win last night 5-4. The Mets have now won 11 of their last 15 games and are just a half-game behind the idle Marlins for the top spot in the National League East, tied with the Braves. But the win was almost lost when Roberto Hernandez, unscored upon in his first eight a...

Not to get greedy or anything but had the Mets managed to win last night with Victor "I'm Not Kazmir" Zambrano against the Nationals, they'd have a place in a three-way tie with the Braves and Marlins this morning. Instead, Zambrano had one of those games we will all look back on with fondness, the kind of pitching performance that leaves you searching for antonyms to superlative like profane, inadequate, deficient. Instead of brilliantly forcing us to forget that the Mets have one ace and one Hall of Famer who can occasionally pitch like an ace, he reminded us of our Achilles heel as he was ripped for eight runs and nine hits in 5 1/3 innings and virtually knocked the Mets out of the game before it really started. He walked three and hit two batters and the Mets lost for just the fourth time in 14 games. Certainly no irony in the fact that yesterday was "Sanitation Day" in New York. Instead, the Mets remain a game behind first place, behind the Marlins a...

NB: Due to travel obligations, the summaries of Friday and Saturday's games against the Nats are necessarily short and sweet. We will return to the predictable ranting and arriving by Wednesday morning : Saturday: Mets 10 Nats 5 With Kaz Ishii, the third Met starter of the season to enter the dark recesses of the disabled list , the Mets were swiftly running out of starting pitcher options. Although his 0-0 record and 8.22 earned run average in three starts at AAA Norfolk would belie any chance in hell of success at the Major League level this season, Jae Seo proved the world wrong and saved the day yesterday for the Mets, pitching five scoreless innings before eventually allowing one run, six hits and no walks in six innings. With the unpredictable Ishii suffering from a strained muscle, Seo threw 79 pitches and 55 went for strikes in winning his first game of the season. Better still, he got to witness the spirit of the "New Mets": "There are not super-huge diff...

For the second time in six days, Pedro Martinez validated the front office decision to jettison Aging Al Leiter by outpitching him to give the Mets a victory. Imagine, after all, if the Marlins had Pedro and the Mets had been stuck with Senator Al. The mere thought induces nausea and vomitting. Instead, our ace, who lifted us again after a loss and who did not have his own souvenir poncho night like Al Leiter did, (souvenir poncho??!) struck out eight and walked none, giving him 38 strikeouts and four walks in 29 innings. Just to underscore his control, whilst the rest of the Mets starting staff struggles to make 50% of their pitches for strikes, Pedro threw 88 pitches last night, 64 of them strikes in winning his second game of the season and lowering his ERA to 2.17. On his souvenir poncho night, Leiter threw 82 pitches in only three innings of work, 42 for strikes, gave up 5 walks, eight earned runs , hit a batter and saw his ERA for the season rise to 5.66 and his record descen...

Well, it didn't take long for that bubble to burst, did it? One start following a magnificent, if entirely unexpected one hit shutout at home against the Marlins, Mets starter Aaron Heilman looked more like himself facing the same Marlins in the Dolphins football stadium, giving up seven runs on 11 hits in a mere four innings, taxing the bullpen and taking a 9-2 loss on the chin. It appears that the reason he's exasperated us all once again was because he abandoned his off-speed pitches and fed fastballs to a team that feasts on them. Pitching coach Rick Peterson, said: "His last outing was a recipe for success. But if you overuse one ingredient, it doesn't come out the same way. This is not the instructional league. It's the big leagues. His thought process tonight was not right." Let me get this straight. You suck in virtually every major league outing, let's say something like a career record of 4-11 and a record of 1-6 on the road with some 7.00 plu...

Boom boom boom boom I'm gonna shoot you right down, right offa your feet Take you home with me, put you in my house Boom boom boom boom --Johnny Lee Hooker, Boom Boom . It might go down as the game that turned into batting practice. Facing a Phillies pitcher making his first start of the season, the Mets had their greatest run production since 1989. Every starting position player had a hit. The team that had hit 12 home runs in its first 13 games had a club-record seven on Tuesday, including a grand slam by David Wright, and buried the Phillies, 16-4. Was it only yesterday that Carlos Beltran was bemoaning the pitching in the NL East? "This is a tough division," Beltran said the Mets' bloodless performance in the series opener Monday night. "I think it is the toughest division in baseball. Every day you face not only a good pitcher, but an ace. Every day you really have to prepare yourself mentally and do an adjustment every at-bat because it's quite a ch...

"I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self, and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse." - Jekyll, highlighting his lack of control over Hyde in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde He had us all fooled last week after he matched Roger Clemens virtually pitch for pitch in a brilliant outing. Where was the evil Ishii who had no pitch control? Left behind after he stunk up Cincinnati? Where was the man who never met a base on balls he didn't like? Had the masterful mind of Coach Peterson tamed him? Did the Mets land the steal of the season getting him for their backup catcher? Well, at least until his next start, we can pack the bandwagon back in mothballs for Ishii was simply atrocious last night in giving us a repugnant sample of what Dodger fans went through for the past two seasons. And it's not like he eased us into it. After a leadoff single, he stunk right out of the gate, throwing 11 consecutive balls in the first inning, walking two batter...

We all knew the Mets would lose again this season. There were a few spoofing "157-5" signs out at Shea on Saturday but six straight victories was a nice run, the perfect antidote for an 0-5 beginning and a portent of good things to come this season. It couldn't last forever and yesterday, AJ Burnett and the Florida Marlins proved that with a 5-2 victory, the first loss at Shea this season for the Mets. Of course, it wasn't just Burnett's four hitter and or his second straight complete game for the Fish that did the Mets in. Most of us probably imagined a meltdown by Zambrano or an 8 walk outing by Ishii or even a typical Heilman outing would do us in but yesterday it was a series of events and a broken down lineup that did the Mets in. Miracles cannot be expected for long with a lineup that has Doug Mientkiewicz batting cleanup. But with Cliff Floyd still out with a nagging rib problem and Mike Piazza begging off after a day game followed a night game and ...

For a half inning it looked like Game 11 of the season was going to play out like Game 1. Pedro Martinez would pitch a brilliant game and Bradon Looper, like magic, would make a Mets win disappear into thin air. The main difference this time was that the Mets had the last at bat. Although Looper coughed up another fur ball from the pen, failing to convert a one run save opportunity, he padded his record to 1-1 after the relief catcher, defensive replacement but offensive whiz Ramon Castro, himself a former Marlin, singled in the bottom of the 9th with two outs to drive in Victor Diaz, another Met replacement player, and give the Mets a 4-3 victory, their sixth victory in a row and pushed them over .500 for the first time all season. Mmmm, that sounds so good, I'll write it again: The Mets' sixth victory in a row . The game started off promising. The most hatable Marlin, Carlos Delgado whose double error in the game previous cost the Marlins the game was in the lineup again a...